In the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries, it is a priori difficult to establish relationship between trade openness and economic growth. This is why we have tried to do so empirically using Granger causality test. The results indicate that apart from Côte d’Ivoire and at 10% level trade openness doesn’t cause economic growth in the WAEMU countries. Conversely, economic growth does not cause trade openness. These results can be explained essentially by the fact that all the conditions are not yet assembled in the WAEMU countries so that trade openness can interact with economic growth. Indeed, openness is usually more profitable to countries that record quite high growth rates and whose industries have already reached maturity or are closed to maturity. This is not the case of the WAEMU countries

Theoretically, openness to foreign capital can stimulate domestic investment in developing countries' or harm their economies by raising the risks of financial crises. It's why in this paper, we have analyzed the impact of foreign capital on domestic investment in Togo over the period . The results we have obtained by using error correction models indicate that overall foreign capital affects positively and significantly domestic investment. It also appears that foreign direct investment (FDI) and loans are the main channels through which foreign capital has a positive impact on domestic investment in Togo. The impact of portfolio investment is negative, but not significant. Keywords: Foreign capital, Domestic investment, FDI, Loans, Portfolio investment, TogoClassification JEL : C22, F21, F34 Introduction:In Togo, domestic resources are relatively insufficient to finance investments in economic and social sectors. Thus, economic growth rates remain so weak to allow a remarkable reduction of poverty. For instance, domestic savings rate decreased considerably since the end of 70s, going from 39.8% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 1978 to only 4.9% in 2005. Theoretically, the access to international financial markets can thus be very beneficial for the country. Indeed, the inflows of foreign capital can result in a reduction of interest rates or increase the volume of credit available to finance investments. Foreign capital can also have an indirect effect on domestic investment through what Kose et al. (2006) call the "collateral benefits", because in order to attract foreign investors, developing countries' governments are forced to set up place good macroeconomic policies, improve political and economic governance. Loans and portfolio investments also contribute to the deepening and the expansion of financial markets. Moreover, even if they are not directly intended for capital formation, foreign loans can be used to increase or smooth consumption. This can thus stimulate the growth of GDP during the periods of decrease in the demand. In addition, foreign direct investment (FDI) can make favor the transfer of new technologies and good practices in management, and consequently involves an improvement of productivity.

To facilitate the introduction of a single currency in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the fiscal convergence criterion currently proposed by countries limits the public deficit to 3 per cent of GDP. According to the literature, the limitation of the public deficit to a given threshold is the most fundamental norm of the various convergence pacts existing and needed for monetary integration. Through a nonlinear panel data model, this paper tests the validity of the threshold by determining the public deficit threshold not to be exceeded so that fiscal policy has a positive effect on economic growth. Over the decade 2007-2016, this threshold is estimated at 4.74 per cent of GDP. Thus, the paper concludes that the proposed convergence criterion of 3 per cent of GDP is pro-growth. However, in relation to the estimated threshold, there is a room for manoeuvre that can be used for supporting economic growth. Thus, the proposed threshold could be readjusted upward. The analysis also reveals that only four countries in ECOWAS are on the track to respect in the future, the proposed fiscal criterion and therefore are taking an important step toward the adoption of the future currency. The other countries need to make significant fiscal consolidation operations before hoping to adopt the single currency on the basis of fiscal discipline.

PurposeRecent works on the structural transformation of developing countries usually include only a few countries because of the availability of data. Beyond the resulting lack of representativeness, these works also hit a strong disparity between the labour reallocation patterns of sub-regions. This paper devoted to sub-Saharan Africa, evaluates the performance of sub-Saharan Africa, as a whole, in structural transformation using a more exhaustive database and highlights key disparities that exist between the performances of sub-Saharan African sub-regions.Design/methodology/approachWith a database covering 43 sub-Saharan African countries classified into 4 sub-regions, the paper uses the shift-share method over the period 1991–2012 with sub-periods of 1991–2000 and 2000–2012.FindingsResults show that labour reallocation in sub-Saharan Africa occurred, though weakly, towards more productive activities over the period 1991–2012. Results also show a significant disparity between sub-regions' labour reallocation pattern. While East Africa has experienced a labour reallocation towards more productive activities, West Africa has seen a labour reallocation towards activities experiencing an increase in productivity. Central Africa and Southern Africa experienced a labour reallocation towards less productive activities, and these activities know, moreover, a decrease of productivity.Practical implicationsFindings suggest that any political strategy purposing to coordinate structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa will result in a failure if countries' peculiarities are not taken into account.Originality/valueThis paper offers a representative picture of sub-Saharan Africa's structural transformation and illustrates disparities between its sub-regions' performances.

The choice of exchange rate regimes remains an important but controversial issue in developing countries that remain open to the rest of the world and whose exports depend on primary products. The objective of this paper is to analyse the effect of the exchange rate regime on export diversification of ECOWAS countries. To do this, we adopted an empirical investigation based on a regression of a linear panel data model of 10 ECOWAS countries over the period 1990 to 2014 using the IV-2SLS estimation technique. Our results mainly indicate that the fixed exchange rate regime is significantly conducive to export diversification in ECOWAS countries. In the light of these results, in order to improve export diversification, the governments of these countries need to undertake policies aimed at maintaining the stability of their national currencies vis-à-vis foreign currencies through an appropriate exchange rate policy.